What about photographers who travel to far-off lands and photograph indigenous people? Does observing them change them? Just this morning, in the March ’09 issue of American Photo, I saw the photo above of women picking tea. The woman in focus is staring straight at the camera, which made me wonder how she felt about being photographed. Did she go home and think about it? About who will see the photo, what potential publicity she might receive from it, etc.

According to this award-winning documentary about “Big brother” and involuntary monitoring of people, Google stores all searches ever conducted over its networks – unlike most of its competitors.

What’s more disturbing, however, concerns their Gmail service (which I use). Since they offer practically unlimited space, most people keep all their e-mail messages. That means Google has all those e-mail messages at its disposal at any time. If and ever a user deletes an e-mail, Google still keeps it on their end, up to two months or more.

The scariest part, though, is that Google has acquired exemption from a privacy bill in California so that it can sell, if it so chooses, its users’ personal information down the road.

AOL, by comparison, doesn’t store web searches or instant messages, but it stores (unread) e-mails. E-mails that have been read are stored for 2 days.

8:08 AM Last night I had the distinct displeasure of watching half of the worst television show I have ever seen – at least what’s retained in my memory. And I only watched half of it because I couldn’t stand seeing another second of it. The show I’m talking about is a certain Family Guy, and the particular episode I’m referring to is embedded below in its full glory.

Now I know you can’t judge a person’s taste or personality from a single show they may like to watch, but I really am going to think twice now about people who actually watch and enjoy this show.

Last night I went biking for three hours at a really beautiful trail called Picture Rock, about a half hour from here. I wish I had my camera because the scenery and weather were absolutely perfect for picture-taking.

This site does not support embedded trip maps. View the trip here instead.

I climbed and climbed and climbed…stopped…took in the view…rode on a few more yards…turned around…and came all the way back down.

Elevation map for Picture Rock trail, Lyons, CO

I made it as far as the scenic outlook, which apparently is more than 5.5 miles one way. I had no sense of time while I was out there. I left the trail parking lot at around 4:45 PM and arrived back at the car at 8:03 PM. The timing was perfect, because there was just enough light out for me to find my way back. The weather couldn’t have been better; it wasn’t hot, it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t too windy or stuffy or anything at all. Just perfect.